Young, gifted, black ... and leading America

Barack Obama's success reflects the rise of 'post-racial' black politicians who distance themselves from the old politics and civil rights of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But many fear this new generation fails to understand the
concerns of some black Americans, reports Paul Harris in Newark

Young, gifted, black ... and leading America

Barack Obama's success reflects the rise of 'post-racial' black politicians who distance themselves from the old politics and civil rights of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But many fear this new generation fails to understand the
concerns of some black Americans, reports Paul Harris in Newark

Saturday 9 August 2008 19.01 EDT
First published on Saturday 9 August 2008 19.01 EDT

Cory Booker's message was clear. Unveiling a plaque to commemorate deadly race riots in his city 41 years ago, the young black Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was thinking of the future as much as the past. Though 26 people died in the troubles and the city turned into a byword for racial tensions and crime, Booker was determined not to make the event about America's past racism and segregation.

'I am of a different generation,' he told a crowd of onlookers in the stifling heat of a Newark summer's day. 'I have never in my life seen a sign, but in a museum, that says "Whites only". I am from a generation that came about in a different era.'

Such honest words, wilfully breaking free from the Sixties civil rights struggle, would once have been unthinkable from a leading black politician, especially when speaking to a mostly black audience. But now, as Barack Obama runs to be America's first black President, a new cadre of so-called 'post-racial' black politicians have moved to the fore. They are changing the face of black American politics.

Shaking off the traditional black power structures of civil rights groups and the black church, they have distanced themselves from figures such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They have also posed a challenge to established black politicians with roots in the old civil rights era, such as South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn and Georgia congressman John Lewis. The new politicians have based their appeal on anything but race. They have forged voter coalitions across racial boundaries, including whites and Hispanics. And it has worked.

Booker is a hugely popular mayor in Newark. He is not alone. Deval Patrick has become the first black governor of heavily white Massachusetts. David Paterson is the first black governor of New York. Adrian Fenty, aged just 37, is the young black mayor of Washington DC, and a world away from the black politicians that came before him. In Atlanta the black mayor, Shirley Franklin, is hugely popular with the powerful white business community.

All of them - like Obama - have won electoral success by seeking to move beyond racial identity. They could be the first trickles of a coming flood. 'This surge of black politicians running post-racial campaigns is new. But if Obama wins the White House we are going to see a major shift towards them,' said Caroline Heldman, a political scientist at California's Occidental College.

Booker looks every inch the new black politician. He is handsome and young and wears dapper suits. He has an impressive educational background: a degree from Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar. He grew up in a mostly white town in New Jersey, the son of IBM executives.

Yet here he is as the mayor of Newark, a city that, for much of America, has come to mean rampant crime and sprawling black ghettos. He is now turning it around. Booker has substantially reduced violent crime. He has reformed the police force and brought high-profile companies to the city. He is a relentlessly upbeat advocate for the city despite its reputation.

That reputation was largely born in 1967. After rumours spread that white police had beaten a black taxi driver, riots broke out that cost 26 lives, injured more than 700 and saw the National Guard brought onto the streets. It resulted in the flight of the white middle class, leaving behind an impoverished black populace. Memories run deep here. Watching the plaque being unveiled was Atno Smith, who grew up near where the riot started. 'You call it a riot,' he said 'We call it a rebellion. You can call it a police riot if you like. Or a National Guard riot.'

Such sentiments have been common in black American politics for a generation; defined by a sense of injustice and the notion that street protest was the best way to address black concerns. The TV image of Sharpton and Jackson leading a march to protest at a police shooting or a racially motivated murder has become a cultural signpost for modern American life. But Obama, Booker and others are seeking to change that.

In his memorial speech, Booker outlined a post-racial future for black Americans and his constant theme was to move on from the civil rights era. 'We do not want these stories or these memories to overcome us and undermine us; to trap us in our history,' he said.

That echoes the themes of Obama, who only openly addressed the issue of race when his pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, became a damaging campaign issue after making comments including blaming America for the 11 September attacks and claiming the government had secretly invented HIV 'as a means of genocide against people of colour'.

Indeed, Obama has been frequently at pains to call on black Americans to take responsibility for their lives. He has spoken at black churches and aggressively pushed the need for individual blacks, especially young fathers, to look after their families better. That theme has earned the ire of older figures such as Jackson, whose fury at Obama recently spilled out when a microphone in a TV studio picked up Jackson admitting he wanted to '... cut his nuts out'.

The new generation of black politicians has forged on regardless and, to some extent, they have succeeded in removing race from their campaigns. When Paterson replaced Eliot Spitzer as New York's governor, much was made of the fact Paterson was blind. His race was rarely mentioned. Patrick and Franklin's paths to power unfolded in similar ways, with race playing little overt role.

In many ways, these politicians reflect the emergence of a black middle class that has moved to the same suburbs as their white counterparts and works in the same professional jobs. A recent study for Radio One, a black broadcasting company, found huge generational discrepancies among black Americans. It found younger blacks in their thirties and forties were twice as likely to say society focused too much on black oppression as their parents' generation. They were also markedly more optimistic about the future.

That attitude can be found even on the streets of Newark where the riots began. William Steele, who is black, said Booker had the right message: 'Cory Booker is just laying it out there. That what we need to do is just stand up. He is giving people a sense of responsibility that if you want some money, then you have to get out there and get a job. It does not matter if you are black or white.'

It is not as easy as that. The truth is far more complex than a flood of newspaper headlines greeting the premature dawn of a non-racial future.

It is certainly easy to find dissenting Newark voices, who believe the new black politicians are abandoning the real concerns of black people. Opposite the police station on which the memorial plaque now hangs, a large estate of new housing has been built. The area used to be a notorious 'project' but is now full of smart, tidy homes. To many that is a sign of progress, but not for Theresa Manning. She says Booker - and black politicians like him - have forgotten the poorest of the poor in her city in favour of embryonic gentrification.

'They knock down a project where we live and then build these new houses. But we can't afford to live in them,' she said 'They are trying to [push] us out of Newark. But where we gonna go?'

There is a fear that the declining influence of old-style black protest politics will mean the new black politicians will be able to ignore disadvantaged black communities or blame them for their own situation. But the fact is that black America is a very different world from the rest of the US.

On average, black American men live seven years less than other racial groups. They are five times more likely to die of Aids. More than three times as many blacks live in prison cells than live in university halls. Many experts fear that electing Obama - or other political leaders - on a 'non-racial' basis would allow these issues to be swept under the carpet. 'There is a sense that this might be the potential downside of the triumph of tokenism,' said Devin Fergus, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.

Given the nature of the problems still facing black America, many black commentators believe there is still a justification for the confrontational, race-based politics of old hands such as Sharpton and Jackson. Indeed, it was noticeable in Obama's epic nomination battle with Hillary Clinton that establishment black politicians were far cooler about Obama than the black Democratic electorate. Many older black mayors, congressmen and senators ended up firmly in the Clinton camp or stayed on the sidelines until near the very end. 'People are worried that these post-racial politicians will not be able to forcibly address real black issues,' said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University who is writing a book on Booker.

On the streets of America's inner cities, that same sentiment can be found, albeit expressed in simpler language. It often takes the form of a resentment of the education of the new black politicians and a belief that they do not understand what it means to be black in America. Obama has come under sustained criticism for his Hawaiian upbringing and his Kenyan - not black American - family background. Even in Newark, Booker is not immune. Manning is not shy about attacking what she sees as Booker's privileged upbringing in a wealthy white suburb. The vehemence of her words, delivered on a street corner as Booker prepared to get back in his SUV, jarred starkly with the positive post-racial rhetoric of the mayor's speech. 'Cory Booker did not know what it means to be black. He had to learn how to be black,' Manning said.

Her words perhaps deliberately echoed a famous campaign taunt used by Booker's predecessor as mayor, Sharpe James. James, who ran Newark for two decades as a classic old-school black politician, once said of Booker: 'You have to learn how to be African-American and we don't have time to train you.' But how times have changed. Booker is now mayor and James has been jailed on corruption charges.

In many black intellectual circles there is now a fierce argument over whether the new 'post-racial' campaigns are simply a means to an end - that sacrificing black identity politics will allow black leaders to better tackle racial injustice. Or are they, paradoxically, a bad thing for many poor black communities whose concerns could be abandoned.

The jury is out. Critics say politicians such as Booker and Obama, by raising issues such as absent black fathers, are pandering to the racism of the white majority in order to win office. 'Some think the election of Obama could be a double-edged sword. Some of what he has said could give strength to those who falsely argue black Americans are marginalised by their own choices,' Fergus said.

But others say the opposite. They say the new generation of black politicians simply want to make all their constituents' lives better and move beyond race. Getting elected first is key, they argue, because only then can they push for social change. 'It's only in office that black leaders can then begin to legislate,' Gillespie said.

Perhaps an answer will emerge only if Obama wins the White House. That is a real possibility, undreamed of even two decades ago. But then America's racial politics are changing. Certainly few people 41 years ago, during the race riots in Newark, would have imagined that the first mayor to produce a memorial to them would be like Cory Booker: young, black, popular with whites and loved by the police. There are even whispers of much bigger things ahead in his political future. Even Manning had good words for the impact the mayor has had on a city that desperately needed help: 'I'll say this for Cory Booker. There isn't drugs being sold outside my house any more. I appreciate that.'